"The PTA Meeting"
Setting: PTA meeting, W.C. Friday Middle School Gymnasium, Dallas, NC
Characters:
· Meredith Brannon (concerned parent)
· Teresa Beck (8th grade math teacher)
· Stephen Sawchuk (assistant editor, Education Week magazine)
· Marilyn Burns (founder, Math Solutions professional development service)
· Kim Anderson (researcher, Regional Educational Laboratory at UNC Greensboro)
· Cristina Marks, (State Policy and Implementation Support, Achieve, Inc.)
· John Kendall (author of Understanding Common Core State Standards)
· Other concerned parents and teachers
Meredith: Ladies and gentlemen, let me first thank each and every one of you for attending this special meeting of the W.C. Friday Parent-Teacher Association. After last month’s extremely vocal meeting regarding the Common Core curriculum being taught next year at Friday, I decided to invite several experts to speak with us regarding our plans to make the Common Core work in the math Department. I’ve also compiled a list of questions that I would like to ask these experts at some point—some questions are my own, others I’ve received via email from other parents. I’d like to ask that everyone please be respectful and listen to the experts as they talk. Don’t interrupt—we don’t let the students talk while the teachers do, so neither should you! First, I’d like to welcome Mr. John Kendall, who will give us a short overview of the Common Core State Standards and what they mean for middle schools like W. C. Friday. Mr. Kendall?
Kendall: Thanks for having me here today, Ms. Brannon, and thank you all for coming out to listen. I understand a lot of parents are having trouble understanding the idea of the Common Core State Standards so I’ll try to explain. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an effort led by states like North Carolina to set up a shared set of expectations for what students in all grades, kindergarten through 12th, will be expected to learn and know in English and Math classes. This set of expectations was coordinated through two organizations: the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. These expectations were released to the state education agencies in June 2010 and North Carolina was one of the first states to adopt them for future implementation. The main benefit to adopting these standards are that they are nationwide—schools from coast to coast will be teaching all students in the same ways using very similar resources and will assess their students’ performance using the same examinations. This will give all US students higher level of education that will prepare them for college. It will also allow teachers to access a great deal of professional tools developed so as to effectively teach to the Common Core. Implementing these Standards requires a massive amount of work and preparation on the part of teachers, parents, administrators, and state agencies, but this will be worth it when the Common Core curriculum produces high school graduates on the level with those in top performing nations like Japan and Finland.
Meredith: Thank you for that introduction, Mr. Kendall. Can you tell me what’s so different about the Common Core standards in comparison to the old educational standards in North Carolina, particularly for math?
Kendall: Sure, Ms. Brannon. The Common Core standards dictate that math curricula across the grade levels will change and be spread out to a larger extent than it is now. Several math concepts will be introduced to students earlier in their careers compared with the curriculum based on traditional standards. For example, take the Pythagorean Theorem. Students will be introduced to it in 6th grade and by 8th grade will prove it, whereas the current standards say it shouldn’t be introduced until 7th grade. Common Core calls for a step-wise approach, where students will build a foundation in early grades and continue to expand their base of knowledge with analysis of known concepts and integration of these old facts with new ideas.
Meredith: Thanks, Mr. Kendall. (pause) Yes, Ms. Beck. You had a question?
Beck: You bet I do, Meredith. Mr. Kendall, can you tell me where this curriculum design came from? How do we know it’ll work?
Kendall: I’d better let Ms. Marks answer that. With me here today is Cristina Marks from Achieve, Incorporated. Achieve is one of the organizations that worked with the governors and school officers to develop the Common Core Standards. She knows more about this than anyone. Cristina?
Marks: Thanks, John. Ms. Beck, the answer to your questions is simple: Japan. We at Achieve have studied educational systems in countries like Japan who continually turn out the highest performing students based on international standardized tests. The Japanese Course of Study was a very important starting point for the development of Common Core. We basically took the Japanese standards and improved them. Basically, we made them more specific, more detailed, and more organized. We did this in the hope that educating our students to better standards will make them better students, just like the ones in Japan.
Meredith: Thank you, Ms. Marks. So with more rigorous standards developed and adopted, what’s the plan for making them work in North Carolina math classes? Would you take this one, Ms. Anderson?
Anderson: Sure, Ms. Brannon. Hello, everyone. My name is Kim Anderson and I work at the Regional Educational Laboratory at UNC Greensboro studying educational policy. I helped compile and publish a report on how North Carolina has studied, adopted, and implemented Common Core State Standards. So we adopted them here for K-12 Math and English halfway through 2010. The State Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh began planning and development of resources and professional development courses for teachers, to be administered in several ways: webinars, TV broadcasts to the outlying districts, and face to face instruction through what we call Professional Learning Communities. Teachers will be attending workshops and return to their schools prepared to function as trainers to other teachers on the Common Core standards and teaching methods they can use to make the new standards work. Ms. Beck, I understand, will be attending the Common Core Summer Institute at Meredith College in June to become the Professional Learning Community coordinator for the Math Department here at W.C. Friday. She will then pass her knowledge to the other teachers and all teachers will have access to the Math Wiki page developed by the Department of Education. Powerpoints, SmartBoard lessons and worksheets will be uploaded there for teachers to use. Later, teachers will be encouraged to give feedback to the agencies so that these tools can be tweaked and made more useful for teachers and students alike.
Meredith: Thanks, Ms. Anderson. I had an email question you might be willing to answer. So, with all these new standards in place, what’s in store for students with End of Grade and End of Course tests?
Anderson: Well, the assessments are being developed and field tested even as we speak. North Carolina officials elected to be a part of a federally funded assessment consortium called SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Alabama and South Carolina are also with SMARTER. This consortium has worked to develop examinations and teacher assessments that are aligned to the Common Core Standards and the results of testing these new assessments will be reviewed at the end of the school year. Then the State Department of Public Instruction and SMARTER will design the first set of achievement standards based on the field test results and continue to change policies and modify assessments before the 2014-2015 school year. In that year, students and teachers will be assessed based on Common Core standards for the first time.
Ms. Beck: And just how do we know what to teach if we’re supposed to teach so kids can pass a test and the tests haven’t even been written yet?!
Meredith: Good question, Ms. Beck. So what is the main thing you think teachers will have to change in their math classes if they and their students are going to be ready for Common Core assessments?
Burns: Ooh, ooh, I’ll answer that! I’m Marilyn Burns and years ago I wrote a book called I Hate Mathematics. Now I run a professional development service called Math Solutions that helps teachers teach mathematics so that students will NOT hate it! I think the Common Core Math standards are very well-designed because they are structured in two parts: Practice Standards and Content Standards. Content Standards are different for each grade and build upon one another to form a solid mathematics education, but consistent throughout the grade levels are the Practice Standards. These are golden, folks, and quite the game-changers. They outline eight ways in which we want students to engage with the math they’re learning. Now, not all eight standards will come into play with every math lesson, but all are important if a teacher is to prepare his or her students for these new tests.
Meredith: Now how do you propose teachers to begin to help their students and implement the Common Core Math Standards?
Burns: The first step is to learn about each student’s numerical reasoning skills. That means how they go about solving problems using the calculator in their heads and not the ones with all the Justin Bieber stickers stuck all over them! As math teachers, we traditionally spend very little time teaching kids how to solve problems in their heads, preferring to devote the large amount of class time to crunching numbers with pencils and paper. But the Common Core tests are going to require kids to use those heads and figure out not just the answer, but more. The right answer on new tests will require kids to explain just how they arrived at that right answer as well. It means bringing English into the Math class, because kids will have to understand the concept of multiplication in addition to knowing their times tables. And it also means spending more time teaching kids how to explain their reasoning strategies.
Beck: But that’s not exactly easy. Kids think the right answer is the only goal. Once they’ve got the right one, they’re done! How do you go about figuring out how kids reason out problems, and once you do, how do you make them better at it? I don’t want to just show them tips and tricks they’ll just memorize and maybe even forget before the test?
Burns: Another very good question, Ms. Beck. I’ve actually developed a little test called the Math Reasoning Inventory, or MRI, that can help with that. Don’t worry! No electromagnets here, just video cameras. Okay, so we know kids read a prompt on a writing test and respond to it in different ways—math’s no different. There’re as many different reasoning styles out there as Harlem Shake videos. But we have to teach them how to pass these new Common Core tests…and fast. So with help from some other teachers and educational researchers, I observed how students explained how they solved math problems. They may have all crunched the same numbers and gotten the same answer, but many struggled to explain to me how they arrived at that answer without the pencil and paper to aid them. Using the information I got from these students’ responses, I developed the MRI to assess a student’s numerical proficiency and mathematical reasoning skills as defined by the Common Core standards. Questions are based on concepts through 6th grade for three topics—whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. Each student takes a math test with questions from one of the topics I mentioned before and then engages in an interview with the teacher. The teacher then analyzes the student’s responses and test answers to determine where they may be lacking in certain skills. Using these results, the teacher can then make plans for their improvement using tracking tools and lesson plans I provide on the MRI website. It’s all free and available any time to any teacher who can use them.
Meredith: Sounds like a pretty useful resource, Ms. Burns. Thanks for sharing that with us today. Are there any more questions for the experts from the audience? Mr. Sawchuk?
Sawchuk: Thanks, Meredith. I am a parent of two who happens to write for Education Week Magazine. I have been researching Common Core for a while now and I am not hearing great things from educational researchers out there. Many claim that Common Core is just another fad system that will fade out in a few years. What do you folks say to that?
Burns: I think we’ve all jumped onto a bandwagon of change sometime in our educational careers only to see it abandoned on the roadside for the next shiny new idea. The difference here is that the Common Core is nationwide—and it will take a lot of time and money to see it work. I don’t think the government would’ve granted funds to an initiative like this one unless they thought it was necessary and had even the smallest chance of success. I, for one, believe this to be a step in the right direction for improving math education on a large scale. That’s why I’m so excited and so prepared to help it succeed!
Meredith: Anyone else care to weigh in on that?
Anderson: I get where you’re coming from, Mr. Sawchuk. We have seen a lot of ideas come and go. What’s different here is that it’s a nationwide plan and the implications are just as big. But we have to look at the benefits of having such a huge amount of people involved in the implementation of this system. With No Child Left Behind, many states lowered the bar on student achievement to avoid any penalties, the result of which means that the US has consistently underperformed compared with other industrialized nations on standardized tests. Other sets of standards have been developed and abandoned so quickly that support and professional development seemed a moot point. I think adopting something as far reaching as Common Core will allow for the development of tools and resources that might actually be useful and will hopefully allow for increased collegiality among the agencies and educators in each state. We may be in it for the benefit of North Carolina, but we can certainly make it better for the rest of the country as well!
Meredith: Thanks, Ms. Anderson. Anything to add, Mr. Kendall?
Kendall: Sure, Ms. Brannon. I agree with Ms. Anderson. I recognize that there are many drawbacks to the Common Core and we certainly have put ourselves under the gun with implementing it in such a short amount of time. That said, I still think the benefits outweigh the risks. And we all know we need to improve the education we’re giving our children before a high school diploma means next to nothing and you need a Master’s in Fry Technology to work at McDonald’s. I, for one, don’t want to see us get to that point. But we do have a long way to go to get Common Core functional. I believe professional development to be a very important step to making Common Core a reality in every state including this one.
Meredith: Thank you, Mr. Kendall. Ms. Marks, anything to add?
Marks: Just that Achieve, Incorporated helped develop the Common Core and devoted a great deal of time in researching the standards we eventually released to the public. We believe them to be the beginning of a new era in American education, one that will be marked with success rather than failure. The United States should be the leader in education and it is time we met that challenge head on. With the Common Core, I believe this goal is more reachable than ever, but it isn’t only up to teachers and administrators. Parents need to be behind it as well, and getting informed is the best way to do that. I encourage everyone to get online and research the Common Core State Standards and learn more about their development and implementation. You can check out corestandards.org and achieve.org to get started. And I’ll be happy to answer any questions about political implications of the Common Core, should you have any. Thanks for supporting your school by coming out tonight.
Meredith: Ms. Beck, anything more from the teachers?
Beck: Just this—parents, please know that this is a major adjustment for students and teachers as we prepare for the Common Core changes. Your support is more valuable than ever as we boldly go where few teachers have gone before. And we know that we, as Americans are facing huge challenges that the Japanese do not. We educate everyone—special populations like autistic children and the mentally handicapped—and Japan does not. We have a very racially diverse community with its own special concerns. Japan does not. We have only recently begun to place a high value on getting a college education whereas Japan has been doing so for generations. And we’re not exactly famous for disciplining our children, but Japanese children are the epitome of discipline. A lot of these problems can be helped if the school receives more support from the community and the parents. We must mitigate these problems before they become unmanageable and affect academic performance. So help us make this work. Lead by example and kids the value of a quality education. And please try to provide a stable home environment free of stressors. Your support has always been felt by the teachers here at W.C. Friday, and we’ll need it now more than ever before if Common Core is to have even a small chance of success. Thanks for coming out and lending us your support, tonight and every night from now on.
Meredith: Yes, thanks to everyone once again for coming out on a lovely spring evening to show your support for W.C. Friday Middle School. If anyone has any business items for next month, please let me know before next week so I might include them in the agenda for May. This meeting is adjourned.
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